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Muff   Listen
noun
Muff  n.  
1.
A soft cover of cylindrical form, usually of fur, worn by women to shield the hands from cold.
2.
(Mech.) A short hollow cylinder surrounding an object, as a pipe.
3.
(Glass Manuf.) A blown cylinder of glass which is afterward flattened out to make a sheet.
4.
A stupid fellow; a poor-spirited person. (Colloq.) "A muff of a curate."
5.
(Baseball) A failure to hold a ball when once in the hands.
6.
(Zool.) The whitethroat. (Prov. Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Muff" Quotes from Famous Books



... a second time, drawing a beautiful circle, she saw Daniel and came over to him. She smiled in a confidential way, chatted with him, glided backwards in a circle about him, laughed at his impatience because she would not stand still, threw her muff over to him, asked him to throw it back, and, with arms raised to catch it, cut an artistic figure ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... must surely exist in individual dogs; otherwise it would puzzle me to account for the singular practical jokes played off by a water-spaniel once possessed by me. This individual, whose name was Muff, was a rather small-sized one, of the pure Kentish blood; liver-colored, with a white ring on his neck, and white paws; close-curled, wicked-eyed, deep-chested, and remarkably powerful for his size. Professionally a retriever,—and one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... to him over the large muff she carried, and he spoke lightly though his awakened interest showed in his face and voice. "I was the unfortunate subject of Gerty's decision," he said. "Is there ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... the slowest of men, began by sending to make choice of the most favourable roads, and marched with a slow pace towards Bully, with his hands and his nose in his muff, and his whole person well packed up in his coach."—Memoirs of Sully, vol. i. p. 235., English ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various

... place and offered her hospitality in the most frigid manner. There had not been the smallest spark of love's flame shown as yet, nor did the girl as she sat sipping her tea seem to think that any such spark was wanted. Morton did get a seat beside her and managed to take away her muff and one of her shawls, but she gave them to him almost as she might have done to a servant. She smiled indeed, but she smiled as some women smile at everybody who has any intercourse with them. "I think perhaps Mrs. Morton will let us go up-stairs," said Lady Augustus. ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... the month, however, I saw a cut-worm come out from behind a cabbage stump and take off his ear muff. He was a little stiff in the joints, but he had not lost hope. I saw at once now was the time to assist him if I had a spark of humanity left. I searched every work I could find on agriculture to find out what it was that farmers fed their blamed cut-worms, but all scientists seemed to be ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... striking than the black cap still worn by Justice in her sternest mood, nor less fanciful than the cocked hat which covered Wedderburn's powdered hair when he daily paced the High Street of Edinburgh with his hands in a muff—was the white hat which an illustrious Templar invented at an early date of the eighteenth century. Beau Brummel's original mind taught the human species to starch their white cravats; Richard Nash, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... thermometer go to zero if it will; so much the better, if thereby the very winds are frozen and unable to flap their stiff wings. Sounds of bells in the keen air, clear, musical, heart-inspiring; quick tripping of fair moccasined feet on glittering ice pavements; bright eyes glancing above the uplifted muff like a sultana's behind the folds of her yashmac; schoolboys coasting down street like mad Greenlanders; the cold brilliance of oblique sunbeams flashing back from wide surfaces of glittering snow or blazing upon ice jewelry of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... fellow-servant touching his legs with a stick, the idea arose in his mind that it was a dog, and he scolded to drive it away; but the servant continuing his game, Negretti took a whip to beat the dog. The servant drew off when Negretti began whistling and coaxing to get the dog near him; so they threw a muff against his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... had often of late glanced back to the childish days when, with their present opinions reversed, he thought Owen a muff, and Owen thought him a reprobate. To his own blunt and reserved nature, the expressions, so charming to poor Miss Charlecote, had been painfully distasteful. Sentiment, profession, obtrusive reverence, and fault-finding scruples ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... said Bob steadily, with his own genial smile lighting up his whole face, "keep your eyes on mine; hold on to me if you like. I shan't think you a muff, because I know you ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... universal favorite among his school-fellows; and, though he was pronounced by some to be a "softy," and by others honored by the equally comprehensive and euphonious titles of "spooney" and "muff," there were few who were not won by his gentle good-nature, and the uniform good temper, and even playfulness, with which he bore the immoderate quizzing that fell to his lot, as a new boarder arrived in the middle of the ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... for robes, For coats, sometimes a muff,— Their meat is prized by some as food, While ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... and he began gathering up the things he wanted to take with him. There was the fur cap that Mother 'Larkey had made for him out of an old muff of hers, the winter before. He couldn't leave that behind, nor yet the overcoat which she had made for him out of an old coat of her husband's just after Mr. Mullarkey had died. The other things he didn't care ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell

... was his reply, made by no means enthusiastically. "If Joseph likes it, that is all that need be said; but it is a marvel to me how she can—such an unmanly creature as he is! such a muff all through!" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... called, and opened the door before he could reach it. The children who were streaking over the asphalt on roller skates saw a lady in a long fur coat, and short, high-heeled shoes, alight from a French car and pace slowly about the Square, holding her muff to her chin. This spot, at least, had changed very little, she reflected; the same trees, the same fountain, the white arch, and over yonder, Garibaldi, drawing the sword for freedom. There, just opposite her, was ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... of great amusement, whether written or acted. To illustrate the latter, you will, for instance, throw your muff under the table, and ask, "What word does that represent?" Perhaps some one will suggest "Muffin." "No—'fur-below.'" Tie your handkerchief tightly around the neck of some statuette—"Artichoke"—etc. In writing or speaking a sentence to illustrate a word, the most ridiculous will sometimes ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... desiring me to be very satyrical upon the little Muff that is now in Fashion; another informs me of a Pair of silver Garters buckled below the Knee, that have been lately seen at the Rainbow Coffee-house in Fleet-street; [1] a third sends me an heavy Complaint against fringed Gloves. To be brief, there is scarce an Ornament of either Sex which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... full speed along the dusty highway, its mistress would suddenly stop, vociferating at the top of her voice—"Muff! Muff! where are you, my incomparable Muff?" when the queer pet would bound up her dress like a cat, and settle itself down upon her arm, poking its black nose into her hand, or rearing up on its hind legs, to lick her face. They were an odd pair, so unlike, so widely disproportioned in size ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... do without her new pair of gloves, that was all, and here Olivia looked disconsolately at her worn finger-tips; she could ink the seams and use her old muff, and no one would notice; what was the use of buying new gloves, when her hands would soon be as red and rough as Martha's. Olivia was just a little vain of her hands; they were not small, but the long slender fingers with almond-shaped nails were ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... tinker women screamed abuse and complaint; and suddenly the dachshund's long yellow nose, streaming with blood, worked its way out of the folds. His mistress snatched at his collar and dragged him forth, and at his heels followed an infuriated tom cat, which, with its tail as thick as a muff, went like a streak through the confusion, and was lost in the dark ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... imprisonment, but as the weather is very cold, they are to be released after one day's detention, and sent back to their preceptors to be flogged again. Their companions are sentenced to return any money, books or garments which they had won in gambling games. A student of the name of Valentine Muff complains to the Rector that his pedagogue has beaten and reproved him undeservedly: after an inquiry he is condemned to the rods "once and again." For throwing stones at windows a student is fined one florin in addition to ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait

... engaging board and lodging at a neighboring residence. At her brother's command she returned; but even a brother's authority failed to control the spirited young lady; for a few months after the episode Madam Coleman wrote: "Sally won't go to school nor to church and wants a nue muff and a great many other things she don't need. I tell her fine things are cheaper in Barbadoes. She says she will go to Barbadoes in the Spring. She is well and brisk, says her Brother has nothing to do with her as long as her father is alive." The same lady ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... it me than a muff like that," quoth he of the long pole; while I answered, surlily enough, that I wanted neither him nor his money, and burst through the crowd toward Cambridge. I was so shabby and plebeian, then, that people actually dare ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... for private perusal at leisure. She ordered her brougham, saying she was going out on business,—and before departing, she took from her dressing-case certain bank-notes and crammed them hastily into her purse—a purse which, in all good faith, she handed to her maid to put in her sealskin muff-bag. Of course, Louise managed to make herself aware of its contents,—but when her ladyship at last entered her carriage her unexpected order, "To the Brilliant Theatre, Strand," was sufficient to startle Briggs, and cause him to exchange surprise signals ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... to be intended for Lord Portmore, in the habit he first appeared at Court, on his return from France. The cane dangling from his wrist, large muff, long queue, black stock, feathered chapeau, and shoes, give him the ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... at the shining skins of muff and scarf. She stroked them gently and lovingly with ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... the stoutest heart quailed, and the girls broke down altogether, and sobbed in each other's arms, while the boys each looked out of one of the long gloomy windows of the parlour, and tried to pretend that no boy would be such a muff as to cry. ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit

... so poor a lot. "My brothers," said he, "by putting their property together, may gain an honest living, but there is nothing left for me except to die of hunger, unless, indeed, I were to kill my cat and eat him, and make a muff of his skin." ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... muff. She looked up at Katie shyly, but with a warm little smile. There was a pause which seemed to hover over it before she said softly: "Why, Katie, I think perhaps I bring him up to ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... Muffs.—In cold dry weather a pair of old soft kid gloves, with large woollen gloves drawn over them, is the warmest combination. Mits and muffetees merely require mention. To keep the hands warm in very severe weather, a small fur muff may be slung from the neck, in which the hands may ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... commanded a clear view of the auctioneer's platform, and he realized that the fierce light of the arc lamps beat down upon as charming a costume as he had seen for many a day. All of corn-flower blue it was, a chiffon gown, a big chiffon muff and a plumed hat. Oh! if he had been allowed to do such shopping for Mary! how quickly he would have entered into the lists of bidders! Mary's eyes were just that heavenly shade of blue, but Mary's pride was as great as her poverty, and the time when he could shower his now useless wealth ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly

... her hand into her ermine muff. She gave him an icy look, not contemptuous but oblivious, and turned away. He stared after her. "By Jove!" thought he, "THERE'S the real thing. There's a true aristocrat." And he frankly paid aristocracy in thought the tribute ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... curved handle. The woman was quite young—not more'n twenty, I should think—and very good-lookin'. She wore a neat tailor-made dress of brown cloth, and a small black velvet hat with a big gold buckle. She had a greyish fur around her neck, with a muff to match, and carried a small, dark green ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... on a score of twenty to seven, the girl in the chiffon veil jumped to her feet, pitched her muff high into the air and yelled. Then evidently overwhelmed with mortification at her wild demonstration instantly dropped back upon her chair, aided in her descent thereto by a ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... muff than I took you for," replied the aristocratic tongs, turning his hall-mark towards me. It was humiliating. Of course I ought to have known I was not solid silver, and had no claim to class myself of the same metal as a genuine ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... carry them out. But I'm glad to see you. I didn't want to do anything sort of underhand with you, you know. Say, Judge, does your invitation to go camping still hold good? After my looking such a muff ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... ain't. But I will fight one, dough! I ain't no muff. If he wants t' fight a duel, by Gawd, I'm wid 'im! D'yeh understan' dat!" Patsy cocked his hat and swaggered. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... and was looking, Estelle told her, perfectly stunning. She had on velvets and furs, pearls and plumes. She had wished at one and the same time to make Gerald Fane proud of her and do honor to Antonia's party. Concealed in her muff was a white parchment volume—muffs were small in those days. A similar volume had been stuffed into each ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... street), or cloth of gold and silver tissue, her hair eccentrically dressed, and perhaps dyed, a great hat with waving feathers, sometimes a painted face, maybe a mask or a muffler hiding all the features except the eyes, with a muff, silk stockings, high-heeled shoes, imitated from the "chopine" of Venice, perfumed bracelets, necklaces, and gloves—"gloves sweet as damask roses"—a pocket-handkerchief wrought in gold and silver, a small looking-glass pendant at the girdle, and a love-lock ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... fumble and a muff, after all! That's too bad, after such a great gallop. Now Clack's got the ball, and a clear field ahead for a run! Go it, you wild broncho! Say, look there, will you, Tony; Ralph West thinks he ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... must have frozen to death," said Kitty softly, and a tear stood in her eye, for she has a tender heart for all little creatures. Then she said "Oh!" and gave a start that sent the tears tumbling over her muff for just that instant, one of the bird's legs twitched and the ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... so glum!" And she touched his arm with her muff, a fluffy contact causing within him a short convulsion, naturally invisible. "Noble, aren't you going to tell me what's ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington

... smiles, his ogling and flattering speeches. When she met his advances with coldness, he bombarded her with notes "containing the tenderest expressions and most magnificent promises," slipping them into her pocket or muff, as opportunity served; but the disdainful beauty dropped the billets-doux on the floor for any one to read who chose to pick them up, until at last the Royal lover was compelled to abandon ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... man, more shrunk than ever, enveloped in furs like a Laplander, had touched his son with his elbow, that he might not be obliged to take his hands out of the muff ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... you want to live peaceably at home. Gracious powers! It was easy to understand. Coupeau still suffered from his leg; besides, he was drawn in sometimes. He was obliged to do as the others did, or else he would pass for a muff. It was really a matter of no consequence. If he came home a little bit elevated, he went to bed, and two hours afterwards he was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... received not only boots, but a muff likewise, and was neatly dressed; and when she was ready to depart, a coach, made of pure gold, stopped before the door. Upon it shone like a star the coat of arms of the prince and princess; coachmen, footmen, and outriders—for there were outriders, too—sat on horseback, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... furs—furs such as we had heard wealthy and stylish city ladies were wearing. A golden brown cape that reached to her elbows, with ends falling to the knees, finished in the tails of some animal, and for her hands a muff as ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... walked through the hall, scrutinizing various things, sits down on the arm of a chair near the sofa, still wearing her cloak and toque and keeping her muff in her hand as if she were on the point of departing again at once. She smiles a trifle sarcastically). Yes, for a bright morning, the chandelier suggests this, that ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... that. I am really puzzled with my perfect ignorance of what I mean to do;—not stay, if I can help it, but where to go?[77] Sligo is for the North;—a pleasant place, Petersburgh, in September, with one's ears and nose in a muff, or else tumbling into one's neckcloth or pocket-handkerchief! If the winter treated Buonaparte with so little ceremony, what would it inflict upon your solitary traveller?—Give me a sun, I care not how hot, and sherbet, I care not how cool, and my Heaven is as easily made as your Persian's.[78] ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... girl had also dark hair. But she was small and bird-like. From head to foot she was in a deep dark pink that, in the wool of her coat and the chiffon of her veil, gave back the hue of the rose which was pinned to her muff. ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... relating to the tax imposed on Russians for absenting themselves from their country for various periods, the custom-house regulations which forbid the entry, duty free, of more than one fur cloak, cap, and muff to each person, etc., since these books form return passports for Russians, though we surrendered ours at the frontier. As the hotel clerk or porter attends to all passport details, few foreigners see the inside of the office, or hear the catechisms ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... Man's Wife had not. If she looked over the garden wall, for instance, women taxed her with stealing their husbands. She complained pathetically that she was not allowed to choose her own friends. When she put up her big white muff to her lips, and gazed over it and under her eyebrows at you as she said this thing, you felt that she had been infamously misjudged, and that all the other women's instincts were all wrong; which was absurd. She was not allowed ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... Puff to his face; yet it's wonderful the influence Bragg has over him. I really believe he has talked Puff into believing that there's not such another huntsman under the sun, and really he's as great a muff as ever walked. He can just dress the character, and that's all.' So saying Jack wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his red coat preparatory to displaying Mr. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... got a present of enough rabbit-wool to make herself a cloak and a hood, and a handsome muff and a pair ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter

... a young woman and a child coming towards her. The little thing was clinging to its mother's skirts, stumbling at every step, whining to be taken up, and now she dropped the white rabbit muff and the doll she was carrying into ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... Caucasian swords around the hotel lobbies. The ladies of the minor bureaucratic set took tea with each other in the afternoon, carrying each her little gold or silver or jewelled sugar-box, and half a loaf of bread in her muff, and wished that the Tsar were back, or that the Germans would come, or anything that would solve the servant problem.... The daughter of a friend of mine came home one afternoon in hysterics because the woman street-car conductor had called ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... particular Milly herself; and hadn't it come up for him the evening before that he quite liked even Susan Shepherd? He had never known himself so generally merciful. It was a footing, at all events, whatever accounted for it, on which he should surely be rather a muff not to manage by one turn or another to escape disobliging. Should he find he couldn't work it there would still be time enough. The idea of working it crystallised before him in such guise as not only to promise much interest—fairly, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... to the Lord Chancellor for an order to visit the farmer's wife mentioned in one of our former reports as having been tied to her bed by a cart rope and her hands secured by a muff. She was accordingly visited, and a report upon her case sent to the Commissioners, who directed an inquiry to be made with a view to her removal to an asylum. The family obtained information of this investigation, and considerable amendment in the treatment ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... was wrong, for at that moment a very small and particularly fat little boy in a fox-skin dress appeared at the mouth of one of the low tunnels that formed the entrance to the nearest hut. This boy looked exactly like a lady's muff with a hairy head above it and a pair of feet below. The instant he observed the strangers he threw up his arms, uttered a shrill cry of amazement, and disappeared in the tunnel. Next instant a legion of dogs rushed out of the huts, ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... got up, stroking her muff, but not removing her eyes from Isabel's face. "Everything!" ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... though, that I'll make some horrible break in front of the crowd—muff a foul, or let one of your fast ones get by me with the ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes

... A little muff for wintry weather, A little jockey-hat and feather, A little sac with funny pockets, A little chain, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... companion but a fussy little lady, of a certain age, who had a large basket, a parrot in a cage, a little lapdog, a bandbox, a huge blue umbrella, which she could never succeed in stowing any where, and a moth-eaten muff. In my valetudinarian state I was not pleased with this inroad—especially as the little lady had a thin, pinched-up face, and obstinately looked out of the window, while she popped about the interieur as if she had just taken lodgings and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... don't know as much about good times as Dorothy does. Why, she can swim, row, paddle, climb trees, and goes in for almost any sport that's on. Last week she swam so far in the sun she couldn't touch an oar or paddle for days, her arms were so blistered. But she didn't go around with her hands in a muff at that. Dorothy's all ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... real mean if he brought her all those, and didn't bring her a muff and some gloves and a' umbulla, too," ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... have a talk with old man Vose about this steamer," said Captain Wass. "Now, son, a last word. I don't want to pry into any delicate matters. But I sort of smell a rat in those papers in your pocket. When she took 'em out of her muff all I could smell was violet. Do you think you've got anything about you that would help me—help ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... places as fine, and finer places he had never seen,—Oswyth, Hurst, and Towers,—all Walderhurst's all belonging to this one respectable, elderly muff. Thus he summed up the character of his relative. As for himself he was young, strong, and with veins swelling with the insistent longing for joyful, exultant life. The sweating, panting drudgery of existence in India was a thought of hell to him. But there ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... kortusxigxi. Movement movado. Mow falcxi. Much multe da. Much multa. Much, so tiom. Much, how kiom da. Much, too tro multe. Mucus muko. Mud sxlimo, koto. Muddle (of liquors) malklarigi. Muddle (bungle) fusxi, konfuzi. Muddle (bungle) konfuzo. Mudguard kotsxirmilo. Muff mufo. Muffle envolvi. Mug pokaleto, poteto. Mulberry moruso. Mulct (fine) mona puno, monpuno. Mule mulo. Muleteer mulisto. Mulish obstina. Multiple multoblo. Multiplicand multigato. Multiplication multigado. Multiplied multigita. Multiplier ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... shoplifting. When arrested by | |Detective Taczhowski, who had trailed them all the | |way from a downtown department store, seven eggs and| |a box of figs were found in Mrs. Ewart's handsome | |blue fox muff.... | ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... beaming matron, at last singled out my heart's desire. She was teaching a Highland dance to a graceful cavalier in white silk breeches, flowered satin waistcoat, and most choicely powdered periwig, fresh from the friseur. His dainty muff and exquisite clouded cane depended from a silken loop to proclaim him the man of fashion. Something characteristic in his easy manner, though I saw but his back, chilled me to an indefinable premonition of his identity. Yet an instant, and a turn ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... transaction. She never forgave him for it. On the day he received the money for it he had brought her home a fur set of baum marten. He thought the stripe in it beautiful. There was a neckpiece known as a stole, and a large muff. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... with rod in hand, away he went in happiest spirits; and ere we were ready to depart, such was the change in the state of his feelings, that he privately confided to his brother, he thought him a great muff to go toiling up the rocks instead of stopping with him to catch the fish that were jumping about, almost asking to be ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... chops on a Friday, after dipping them into holy water and turning them into trout? But his good brother kept on and prospered and the bad one kept on grumbling. Now, at Grosse Isle was a strange thing called the rolling muff, that all were afraid of, since to meet it was a warning of trouble; but, like the feu follet, it could be driven off by holding a cross toward it or by asking it on what day of the month came Christmas. The worse of the Tremblays encountered this creature ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... at one end of the great room, with Edna Wright and Daisy Culver. Grace thought she had never seen Eleanor looking more beautiful. She was wearing a fur coat and hat far too costly for a school girl, and carried a huge muff. Her coat was thrown open, disclosing a perfectly tailored gown of brown, with trimmings of dull gold braid. She was talking animatedly and her two friends were apparently hanging on every word ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... windows, high up and at the front of the big hotel, Julia looked down upon the Lake of Geneva. She was in such haste to behold it that she had not so much as unbuttoned her gloves; she held her muff still in her hand. After one brief glance, she ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... do you think of the Ormthorhynchus? My brain's in a 'muss' From thinking of this 'cuss' (Excuse me for using such a word). If it lived at Nahant With this heat it would pant, For surely't is a curious bird. You may think me a 'muff', And declare I talk stuff, But I hope you'll not doubt my word. For though out in all weathers Its coat's not of feathers But of fur,—at least so I've heard. But 'by this illumination' (Kant's ratiocination?) 'I don't see it,' though ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... direct to the table on which the paper was symmetrically arranged in a stationery rack, and quickly seating herself, she laid her muff down, half-raised her little veil, and beat a tattoo with her tiny hand on the little black leather blotter before her, then taking off her gloves, she took at random some sheets of paper and some envelopes bearing the address of the establishment on the corners. As she looked around for a pen, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... had risen and stood smoothing her muff and not feigning to smile. "In her train. I don't think that Gregory's wife should go ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... crumpet, gives the Saxon [Anglo-Saxon: crompeht]. To crump is to eat a hard cake (Halliwell's Archaisms). Perhaps its usual accompaniment on the tea-table may be indebted for its name to its muff-like softness ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various

... reasons than one, for his mother was rather cross to him since her new family had arrived and so Dippy settled down quite content to be petted and made much of by Mrs. Hunt while Marian adopted the new kitten which she called Muff. As Tippy's real name was Tippet, she thought Muff and Tippet went rather well together. One of the other kittens found a home with Ruth Deering, but the ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard

... held her hands together under the cover of her muff. The anxious moment seemed an age to her, and although the green-robed girl had assured Margaret that the lady was on the way to meet them, she was positive that it was at least half an hour until the slim, silk-clad form of the directress of Artemis Lodge stood smiling ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther

... on; and if I tell her to sit on a certain seat, on that seat she sits; and if I tell her not to speak to a certain individual, she does not speak to them. If a man lets a woman do what he doesn't like he's a muff. ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... and an error plainly induced by the very effort made to steal a base. No base can be credited to a base runner as having been stolen which is the result of a dropped fly ball, a wild throw to a base player, or a palpable muff in fielding a batted ball. But in view of the difficulties surrounding base stealing, it is not going out of the way to credit a base as stolen when the effort of the runner, in taking ground and getting a start to steal, leads ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick

... not want to talk. When he had tucked her up with railway rugs in her corner of the carriage she sat still with her hands in her muff. ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair

... woman in ordinary, whose eye is so keen for material things, Sue seemed to see nothing of the room they were in, or any detail of her environment. But on moving across the parlour to put down her muff she uttered a little "Oh!" and grew paler than before. Her look was that of the condemned criminal who catches sight of ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... breath at the idea of such a doll, but was a little disappointed when her hostess took from a drawer a fine lady, whose hair was done up in a French twist, and whose silk gown was made with a train. She was certainly very elegant, however, and her muff and collar were sure enough sealskin, as ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard

... the publication of Pamela—especially if during the interval she had bettered her social condition—with what ardour must she have hailed the advent of what, with all its shortcomings, was a book worth gold. Perhaps she went to Vauxhall with it in her muff, and shook it triumphantly at some middle-aged lady of her acquaintance. Perhaps she lived long enough to see one great novel after another break forth to lighten the darkness of life. She must have looked back on the pompous and lascivious pages of Eliza ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... young women knitting or nursing or helping the poor, and it is an adventure uncommon enough to be remembered to meet on the street a pretty young lady merely out to take the air, with hands in her muff and trotting in front of her the timorous dachshund, muzzled like a ravening tiger and looking at the world askance ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... artistic tramps. I only hope Paul may take the thing; I want coin so badly, and besides it would be something done—something put outside of me and off my conscience; and I should not feel such a muff as I do, if once I saw the thing in boards with a ticket on its back. I think I shall frequent circulating libraries a good deal. The Preface shall stand over, as you suggest, until the last, and then, sir, we shall see. This to be read with a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... were Mildred Wendell's two passions. She had furs of all sizes and colors and weights, beginning with the little muff and tippet her favorite aunt had given her long ago when she was only five to the really beautiful and expensive set her son, Charlie, had given her for her last birthday. As for ferns, she had so many that Green Valley always went to her for its ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... around the room with the utmost care She thoughtfully circulated. Then she seized her gloves and a chamoiskin, Some breath perfume and a long stickpin, A bonbon box and a cloak and some Eau-de-cologne and chewing-gum, Her opera glass and sealskin muff, A fan and a heap of other stuff; Then she hurried down, but ere she spoke, Something about the maiden broke. So she scurried back to the winding stair, And the young man looked in wild despair, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... thing most. There was the four Buckmaster girls always at her. It was, Mary, git the coal-skittle; Mary, run down to the public-house for the beer; Mary, I intend to wear your clean stockens out walking, or your new bonnet to church. Only her poor father was kind to her; and he, poor old muff! his kindness was of no use. Mary bore all the scolding like a hangel, as she was: no, not if she had a pair of wings and a goold trumpet, could she have been a ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... cry. Lucy stood before him, flushed, pulling at her glove, and saying something incoherent. But before he could understand she had turned back to the two women who accompanied her and spoken to them quickly; the elder replied, with a sour look at David; the younger laughed behind her muff. Lucy turned away wilfully, and at that instant the crowd from within, surging outwards, swept them away from her, and she ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... no enthusiasm over the suggestion; instead she gathered up her muff and gloves and, leaving a message for Mr. Clarke with ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... the box, but soon pushes it away from her). If only I dared go out. If only no one would come. If only I could be sure nothing would happen here in the meantime. Stuff and nonsense! No one will come. Only I mustn't think about it. I will brush my muff. What lovely, lovely gloves! Out of my thoughts, out of my thoughts! One, two, three, four, five, six— (Screams.) Ah! there is someone coming—. (Makes a movement towards ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen

... 'explene his intintions with respect to his sisther, Miss Amalia Macdragon, of Macdragonstown,' and proposed to shoot him unless he married that spotless and beautiful young creature, who was afterwards led to the altar by Mr. Muff, at Cheltenham. If perseverance and forty thousand pounds down could have tempted him, Miss Lydia Croesus would certainly have been Lady Buckram. Count Towrowski was glad to take her with half the meney, as all the genteel ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... half-an-hour the carrier was to call for it to take it to Lowton, whither I myself was to repair at an early hour the next morning to meet the coach. I had brushed my black stuff travelling-dress, prepared my bonnet, gloves, and muff; sought in all my drawers to see that no article was left behind; and now having nothing more to do, I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... difficult proceeding on an expenditure of fifty cents, hoarded by incredible exertion. Success had been achieved, however, and the precious packet had been sent by post two days previous. Miss Sawyer had bought her niece a nice gray squirrel muff and tippet, which was even more unbecoming if possible, than Rebecca's other articles of wearing apparel; but aunt Jane had made her the loveliest dress of green cashmere, a soft, soft green like that of a young leaf. It was very simply made, but the ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... voted that no harm had been done after all, for next Christmas the Rutledge girls each had a lovely silk party dress from the double fund; Gracie's cloak was mated by the prettiest hat and muff; Tom had his wild desire for a bicycle fulfilled; Harry owned a real gold watch which was far better than a dog; and Jack's ten gold eagles took him in the spring to Niagara and down the St. Lawrence, a journey never to be forgotten. Kate and Rosamond had their ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... drop it in some ash-can or down some sewer on the way to the office," she said to herself. She slipped it into her muff and hurried away. But on the way to the cable-car no ash-can presented itself. True, she discovered the opening of a sewer on the corner where she took her car. But a milkman and a police officer stood near at hand in conversation, occasionally glancing at her, and no ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... to explain in his imperturbable drawl; "Angelica discovered that I was born with a hee-red-it-air-ee predisposition to be a muff. We mostly are on father's side of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... wore fair mantles of the above-named stuff, or capes of violet velvet with edging of gold, or with knotted cordwork of gold embroidery, garnished with little Indian pearls. They always carried a fair plume of feathers, of the color of their muff, bravely adorned with spangles of gold. In the winter-time they had their taffeta gowns of all colors, as above named, and those lined with the rich furrings of wolves, weasels, Calabrian martlet, sables, and other costly furs. Their beads, rings, bracelets, and collars were ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... Nevill Tyson had started from her seat and was waving her muff wildly in the air. "Look—there he goes! Oh, did you see him take that fence? What an insane thing to do ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... that he snarled: "Don't you ever let me catch you around the tannery again, or I'll make you into a muff ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl

... faint, and in low spirits. The events of the past days seemed to fit themselves to the strain, till his brow wrinkled up, then grew full of knots, and he angrily muttered the word "Muff!" A few moments later he ejaculated "Duffer!" and then twisted himself suddenly round to look up at the open window from which, mingled with the loud conversation and rattle of plates, ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... Janet's costume," she ordered, "and any one who has a spare minute can be fitting it over. We shall have to have an extra rehearsal to-morrow of the parts where Ermengarde comes in. Go on now, Sara. Use Lucile's muff for the monkey." ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... respectable—most undoubtedly respectable. But who knows? A panic may take place; and then these five hundred companies in which he is engaged may bring him to ruin. There's the Ginger Beer Company, of which Brough is a director: awkward reports are abroad concerning it. The Consolidated Baffin's Bay Muff and Tippet Company—the shares are down very low, and Brough is a director there. The Patent Pump Company—shares at 65, and a fresh ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray

... him with the closest attention; only interrupting him now and then with little words, intended to signify her approval. He, as he told his tale, did not look her in the face, but sat with his eyes fixed upon her muff. "And now," he said, glancing up at her almost for the first time as he finished his speech, "and now, Mrs Thorne, what am I ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... she'll only worry herself to death. No, that won't do. Mrs. Goodenough—but she's a donkey; and if I convinced her, she could never convince any one else. No; Mrs. Dawes, who told you, shall tell me, and I'll tie my hands together inside my muff, and bind myself over to keep the peace. And when I've heard what is to be heard, I'll put the matter into Mr. Gibson's hands. That's what I'll do. So it's no use your saying anything against it, Phoebe, for ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... tire of the friendships we form with books," he said, "and here they will possess the added charm of association with their donors. Some neighbouring Glasgow widow will be mistaken for that remoter one whom Sir Roger de Coverley could not forget; Sophia's muff will be seen and loved, by another than Tom Jones, going down the High-street some winter day; and the grateful students of a library thus filled will be apt, as to the fair ones who have helped to people it, to couple them in their thoughts with Principles ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... you yet," he said, pointing a finger at the embattled Stover. "You're a muff, a low-down muff, in ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... to be in my company? Why was he not at home among the icebergs, and how could he stand a warm summer's sun, and not be melted away? Besides, instead of icicles, there were ear-rings hanging from his ears; and he did not wear bear-skins, and keep his hands in a huge muff; things, which I could not help connecting with ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... rain, now sunshine. I'm kind of a house agent, also a manager of funerals. I can laugh or cry, according to circumstances. I have my summer wardrobe in this box here, but it would be very foolish to put it on now. Here I am. On Sundays I go out walking in shoes and white silk stockings, and a muff." ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... Hattie's justly famous Brown Cold Cream—Guaranteed Color-fast—Mulatto, Medium, Chocolate, had come Marcia's ermine muff and tippet; the enamel toilet set; the Steinway grand piano; the yearly and by no means light tuition toll at Miss Harperly's Select Day School ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... an untrimmed, black tailor-made costume with a very long train, a little fur toque to match a small neck piece, and a little sausage-shaped muff. Her diamond earrings were enormous, but not very good stones. Nina's dress was of raspberry cloth, cut in the latest exaggeration of fashion—her skirt was short and skimp as her hat was huge. Her muff of sables as big and soft as a pillow—she could easily have buried her arms in ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... view the beaus at Will's, the men of wit, By nature nice, and for discerning fit, The finished fops, the men of wig and muff. Knights ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... indeed, she greatly resembles; her feet and hands are of wax, and she has more dresses than I can possibly count. I am afraid you will scarcely believe me, but she actually has a real little ermine muff and tippet, a pair of india-rubbers, an umbrella, a camels' hair shawl, and real corsets! and was won, with all her wardrobe, at one of the raffles in the great Union Bazaar. You went there, didn't you—you cunning little ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow

... showed me the bullet in the chamber-door," remarked Caroline gravely, as she folded her mantle and arranged it and her muff on a side-table. "You know," she continued, "there is a hedge all the way along the road from here to Whinbury, and there are the Fieldhead plantations to pass; but you will be ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... life. Often had he, in earliest childhood, toddled away from the gate after the fife and drum of a recruiting party; and often did he march and countermarch me, till I could not stand for fatigue, with a grenadier's cap, alias a muff, on my head, and my father's large cane shouldered by way of a firelock. The menaced invasion had added fuel to his martial fire, and when any other line of life was pointed out to him, his high spirits would droop, and the desire ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... became suddenly aroused to the fact that my efforts to retain it were resisted by some equally persistent force; and, letting it go, I was horrified at seeing it swiftly drawn under the couch. At this point I sat up, completely awake; for immediately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated muff began to emerge from under the couch. Presently it appeared fully, dragging the serape after it. There was no mistaking it now: it was a baby-bear,—a mere suckling, it was true, a helpless roll of fat and fur, but ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... exulted: "They've fired it, they've fired it! and now the captain will blow the whistle in answer." But the captain did nothing of the kind, and the lady, after some more girlish effervescence, upbraided him for an old owl and an old muff, and so sank into such a flat and spiritless calm that she ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... when Fleeming said grace over that meal. Thenceforward he continued to observe the form, so that there was kept alive in his house a grateful memory of peril and deliverance. But there was nothing of the muff in Fleeming; he thought it a good thing to escape death, but a becoming and a healthful thing to run the risk of it; and what is rarer, that which he thought for himself, he thought for his family also. In spite of the terrors of Rhu Reay, the cruise was persevered in and brought to an ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and troubled on him as in the effort to think of some arrangement that would help him out of his absurdity. "I was sure, I mean, that if you did come your poor, dear, doting brain would be quite confused," she presently pursued. "I can't be a muff in public just for you, pourtant. Dear me, why do you ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... to the palate than to the sight or the smell. At Langres he had an excellent bed about six feet high from the ground. He beguiled the time with Homer and Clarendon, talking with his servant, Caplin, and his dog Muff, and sometimes with the French postilions, and he found them the least ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... flirting desperately with his Englishwoman, who had recovered from her seasickness. She had found a friend, a woman in a fur cap and coat, with a magnificent crown of light hair, like a Swedish woman's. She seemed to be greatly amused by Fuellenberg's poor jokes and poor English. He had abstracted her muff and was alternately conveying it to his stomach, his heart, and—this very passionately—his mouth. The young American jackanapes was promenading with his Canadian, who looked very haughty and blase, yet much fresher. The delicate creature seemed to be shivering with cold, though she ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... was a big paper box. Mell lifted the lid. A muff and tippet lay inside, made of yellow and brown fur like the back of a tortoise-shell cat. These were beautiful, too. Then came rolls of calico and woollen pieces, some of which were very pretty, and would make nice doll's dresses, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... But, oh, Jerry, it was a squeak! Honest to goodness, my heart isn't beating right yet. Tied, Jerry—at the half. Then Muff Bowling on the South High made two spliffy baskets—they were great, even if she made 'em! Our girls acted as though they were just dummies, but didn't they wake up? You should have seen their passing then. Why, honest, Midge Fielding was everywhere! Caught a high ball and passed ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... the evening there were fireworks and electrical displays and a Reception at the Exhibition Building attended by a large representation of New Brunswick society. Late in the afternoon a deputation of ladies waited upon Her Royal Highness and presented her with a beautiful mink and ermine muff on behalf of the women of St. John. At noon on the following day the Duke and Duchess left the city amid much cheering and the farewells of a representative gathering at the station. On the way to Halifax the City of Moncton, N. B., celebrated the arrival of the Royal tourists with ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins



Words linked to "Muff" :   fumble, louse up, blunder, foul-up, handwear, bodge, pratfall, foul up, bollocks, screw up, blooper, bumble, fuck up, neglect, American football game, flub, mishandle, fluff, spoil, bloomer, fail, bollocks up, bobble, botch up, miscarry, muck up, boo-boo



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